ASTRA's Enemies: A New Stark Hero

2: ASTRA AND MY AMBITIONS

My knack for science of all disciplines and my cunning, strategic mind/ the ability to outsmart anyone are my greatest powers. I value intelligence and knowledge above everything else, because I owe most of my success to science. However, everyone knows that is not enough in my world, full of dangerous people and weapons that cause colossal physical harm.

So, alongside my father, I built my own suit - code named ASTRA, to protect me. I began building the suit at age 16, without any ideas for how I would power it - just the shell, essentially, at first. My suit, similar to Iron Man, is made of titanium, except I designed my own alloy. I upgraded pure titanium to make it similar to Grade 5 Titanium (Ti-6Al-4V) to improve it's aircraft, marine and aerospace abilities. It has a wide range of functions, including flying, swimming and combat abilities, and relies partially upon Dad's A.I. Jarvis. This means the suit can log into databases to identify anyone I come across on missions, break through security firewalls (if I don't have time to do it myself) and call anyone. I can play my music, too - Florence and the Machine, Taylor Swift, I don't even complain when Dad puts on AC/DC. I'm not picky.

(I complained about this, saying I could just design my own A.I. but Dad insisted and I didn't want to hurt his feelings by rejecting him!)

The metal is extremely resistant to heat and ice, giving me the ability to fly as high as through the atmosphere as well as deep down below the surface of the Earth. The Astra suit has a self-repair function, so it is extremely rare that I have to fix things myself - although sometimes, in extreme cases, I do. The suit is always technically on me - I only need to give a voice command to either my ring, watch or earring for the suit to begin to unfurl from the nano particles it's contained in. So, technically, there's usually three suits on my person at any one time. It's always good to have backups though. The Astra suit is an ongoing project like Dad's own suit, as I'm constantly making improvements and upgrading the technology. Everything has been thought of, including corrosion resistance, durability, maximum strength with minimum heaviness, safety, logistics, aerodynamics - and of course, the most important thing. Power.

When I was 17, after witnessing the events of The Battle of New York, I studied the the Tesseract alongside my father. I saw amazing promise in it's infinite energy, but I also saw straight away (and I believe before anyone else) the shortcomings, too. The Tesseract is simply too small, too vulnerable, for humans to be able to hold onto it. If Loki was so obsessed with it, then there were no doubt a few other thousand planets and space beings obsessed, too. After all, doesn't every civilisation need energy? I doubt there is enough energy in the Tesseract to power an entire universe. So it will no doubt be fought over, and I want humans to stay out of that fight.

ASTRA is powered by, to put it simply, a star. Yes, that's right. My close friendship with Jane Foster, the renowned astrophysicist, led to me taking a huge interest in space. To look beyond the surface of the Earth. My suit needed energy, practically unlimited - so I did exactly that. Looked up, to the stars. With Jane's help, and Dad's unlimited wealth, I am creating my own Dyson Sphere.

(Governments of the world did not yet accept or officially recognise my project, due to my age. It is technically impossible to hold any sort of qualification like a PhD at 17, which was extremely frustrating, as I undoubtedly had the abilities, just not the qualifications. But thankfully money was no object for me, and it was a private project - until I gained some recognised qualifications.)

The idea of a Dyson Sphere was made prominent by theoretical and mathematical physicist, Freeman Dyson in 1960, but it was just that - an idea. I, however, intend to set this idea in motion, to actually create an almost unlimited energy source for the world.

I believe that the Infinity Stones, namely the Tesseract, are simply too sought after to ever be properly relied upon. Too many planets want them, and there are constant wars being fought over which planet gets to keep them. They are so small - easily grabbed and taken away. If I build this Dyson Sphere for my planet, it means we have an unlimited energy source that is solely ours. Nobody can come and just take an entire megastructure encompassing a star. It's sheer size, when it is fully constructed, will be it's main protection.

The theory of how it works, in a nutshell, is that satellites are created on Earth and blasted off into space to orbit a star. These are energy-collecting satellites resembling colossal mirrors, that harvest vast amounts of energy from the star and send that energy back to Earth, to be used for anything that requires it. It would be similar in power to the Tesseract, yet much, much more secure. I chose Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to Earth, as the site for my Dyson Sphere - due to quickest speed of transportation, of my satellites.

I have a prototype, only a few satellites at Proxima Centauri already, enough to power ASTRA, but my aim is to completely encompass it - and even though I'm still incredibly young, I know that this project probably won't be finished in my own lifetime. So, the first Dyson Sphere completion will most likely become my legacy, and just like my dad finished his own father's work, I hope that someday one of children or associates will finish mine.

And I have made it my purpose, for now - alongside the smaller, yet sometimes insanely important, dangerous affairs of my daily life.